Patrick O'Brian - The Ionian mission

The squadron cruised in strict formation under the eye of a most punctilious Captain of the Fleet and under the far more dreaded supervision of the unseen Admiral. It was not unlike a perpetual full-dress parade, and the least mistake led to a public reproof, a signal from the flag requiring the erring ship to keep her station, a message that could of course be read by all the rest. And since each ship had her own trim, her own rate of sailing and her own amount of leeway this called for incessant attention to the helm, jibs and braces, as wearing as the incessant vigilance by day and night, the searching of the sea for Emeriau in line of battle. For the Worcesters it was not so bad as for those who had been at it for months and even years; it had something of novelty, and there were quite enough man-of-war's men aboard for her not to disgrace herself. There was a great deal of necessary work to keep them busy: for most these were not yet routine tasks, already done so often that they were second nature; and unlike the other ships' companies the Worcesters had not been at sea so long that the absence of female company was a matter of almost obsessive concern. And although the gunner's wife, a plain, sober, middle-aged lady, had received a number of propositions - propositions that she rejected firmly but without surprise or rancour, being used to men-of-war ? the idea of substitution had hardly spread at all. The ship was blessed with a long spell of fine weather to ease her in, and in a surprisingly short time this exactly-ordered, somewhat harassing but never idle existence seemed the natural way of life, pre-ordained and perhaps everlasting. Jack knew most of his six hundred men and boys by now, their faces and capabilities if not always their names, and upon the whole he and Pullings found them a very decent crew; some King's hard bargains among them and more who could not stand their grog, but a far greater number of good than bad: and even the landsmen were beginning to take some tincture of the sea. His midshipmen's berth he was less pleased with: it was the weakest part of the ship. The Worcester was entitled to twelve oldsters or midshipmen proper; Jack had left three places vacant, and of the nine youths aboard only four or perhaps five had the evident makings of an officer. The others were amiable enough; they walked about doing nobody any harm, gentlemanly young fellows; but they were not seamen and they took no real pains to learn their profession. Elphinstone, Admiral Brown's protege, and his particular friend Grimmond, were both heavy, dull-witted, hairy souls of twenty and more; both had failed to pass for lieutenant and both were fervent admirers of Somers, the third lieutenant. Elphinstone he would keep for his uncle's sake; the other he would get rid of when he could. As for the youngsters, the boys between eleven and fourteen, it was harder to form an opinion, they being so mercurial: harder to form an opinion of their capabilities, that is to say, for their attainments could be summed up in a moment, and a more ignorant set of squeakers he had never seen. Some might be able to parse until all was blue or decline a Latin noun, but parsing never clawed a ship off a lee shore. Few understood the Rule of Three; few could multiply with any certainty, nor yet divide; none knew the nature of a logarithm, a secant, a sine. In spite of his determination not to run a nursery he undertook to show them the rudiments of navigation, while Mr Hollar the bosun, a far more successful teacher, made them understand the rigging, and Bonden the right management of a boat.

His classes were tedious in the extreme, since none of these pleasant little creatures seemed to have the least natural bent for the mathematics, and they were awed into even deeper stupidity by his presence; but the lessons did at least keep him from worrying about what the lawyers might be doing at home. Of recent weeks his mind had tended to run out of control, turning over the intricate problems again and again: a sterile, wearing, useless activity at the best of times and far worse between sleeping and waking, when it took on a repetitive nightmarish quality, running on for hours and hours.

It was after one of these sessions with the youngsters and their multiplication table that he stepped on to the quarterdeck and took a few turns with Dr Maturin while his gig was hoisting out. 'Have you weighed yourself lately?' asked Stephen.

'No,' said Jack, 'I have not.' He spoke rather curtly, being sensitive about his bulk: his more intimate friends would exercise their wit upon it at times, and Stephen looked as if he might be on the edge of a bon mot. But on this occasion the question was not the prelude to any satirical fling. 'I must look into you,' said Stephen. 'We may all of us entertain an unknown guest, and I should not be surprised if you had lost two stone.'

'So much the better,' said Jack. 'I dine with Admiral Mitchell today: I have two pair of old stockings on, as you see. Larboard mainchains,' he called to his coxswain, and almost immediately afterwards he ran down into the waiting gig, leaving Stephen strangely at a loss. 'What is the connection between the loss of two stone and the wearing of two pair of old stockings?' he asked the hammock-netting.

The connection would have been clear enough if he had gone aboard the San Josef with Jack. Her quarterdeck had a large number of officers upon it, which was natural enough in a flagship: officers tall, medium and short, but all of them remarkably lean and athletic - no sagging paunches, no dewlaps in the San Josef. From among them stepped the Admiral, a small compact man with a cheerful face and the pendulous arms of a foremast-hand. He wore his own grey hair, cut short in the new fashion and brushed forward, which gave him a slightly comic air until one met his eye, an eye capable of a very chilling glance indeed, though now it expressed a cordial welcome. He spoke with a pleasant West Country burr, and he rarely pronounced the letter H.

They talked about some improvements in the tops, the provision of a new kind of swivel-gun with little or no recoil; and as Jack had expected the Admiral said, 'I tell you what, Aubrey, we will have a look at them; and then while we are about it let us race to the jack-crosstrees - there is nothing like it for a whet to your appetite - the last man down to forfeit a dozen of champagne.'

'Done, sir,' said Jack, unbuckling his sword. 'I'm your man.'

'You take the starboard ratlines, since you are the guest,' said the Admiral. 'Away aloft.'

The captain of the maintop and his mates received them calmly and showed them the working of the swivel-guns. They were perfectly used to the sudden appearance of the Admiral, who was famous throughout the fleet as an upperyardsman and as one who believed in the virtue of exercise for all hands; they looked covertly at Captain Aubrey's face for signs of the apoplexy that had struck down the last visiting commander and they were gratified to see that from a pleasing red Jack's face had already turned purple from keeping pace with the Admiral. But Jack was a tolerably deep file: he loosened his collar and asked questions about the guns - the guns interested him extremely - until he felt his heart beat easy with the coming of his second wind, and when the Admiral cried 'Go-he sprang into the topmast shrouds as nimbly as one of the larger apes. With his far greater reach and length of leg he was well ahead until half-way to the topmast bibs, where the Admiral drew level, swung out on the mizen flagstaff stay and began swarming up the frail spider's web that supported the San Josefs lofty topgallantmast with the jack-crosstrees at its head, up and up hand over hand, no ratlines here for their feet. He was at least twenty years older than Jack, but he led by a yard when he reached the crosstrees, writhed round them and took up a strategic position that effectually stopped Jack's progress. 'You must stand on them with both feet, Aubrey,' he said without a gasp. 'Fair's fair,' and so saying he leapt outwards on the easy roll. For a split second he was in the air, free as a bird, two hundred feet above the sea: then his powerful hands grasped the standing backstay, and the immensely long rope that plunged straight from the mast-head to the ship's side by the quarterdeck at an angle of some eighty degrees; and as the Admiral swung to clasp it with his legs so Jack set both feet on the crosstrees. Being so much taller he could reach the corresponding stay on the other side without that appalling leap, without that swing; and now weight told. Fifteen stone could slide down a rope faster than nine, and as they both shot past the maintop it was clear to Jack that unless he braked he must win. He tightened his grip above and below, felt the fierce burning in his hands, heard his stockings go to ruin, gauged his fall exactly, and as the deck swept close he dropped from the stay, landing at the same instant as his opponent.